What if feats had no direction combat application?

[Crazy Jerome]

Is this the kind of thing you are thinking about?

Yes, certainly in part, but with the follow up from keterys about being enough interesting ones to take.

Note that it would meet my criteria to have relatively few feats, but sharply curtail how many you get. I don't much favor this, because I think it is fun to take feats. It would work, though.

Also, since this is more or less brainstorming, I'm open to any of the ideas so far, but don't want to limit responses to those.

Working within the 4E constraints, for example, it might work to get the number of feats the same, then pre-pick certain combat ones by build. This does some of the Essential activities in a slightly different areas. At level 2, you get weapon focus or something equally appropriate, by class/build. At level 4, you get to pick from the list of non-combat numbers stuff. This is an inelegant way to leave the numbers alone, but achieve some modest siloing of the char op combat feats with the other stuff. I like it as a thought exercise, and I like it as a possible compromise solution for a more comprehensive rework, but I don't want to assume something as inelegant as that up front.

Here is another way to approach it, then. Are there activities that D&D adventurers can do that are not mere number mangling, interesting enough to justify a feat selection, but not so compelling that they seem required or step on reasonable things that all D&D adventurers should be able to at least try?

Personally, I think swimming fits in this niche--provided that you let non-swimmers at least flounder for awhile out of armor in reasonable water. And provided that other feats are not so compelling that no one ever takes swimming. That's the thing, not having negative feats as an option. If you've got things like "swim" or "literacy", you want about half the party to at least consider taking them.

And note the design danger here. If, and boy is it a big if, you set the DCs well enough, then bigger numbers with the 1/2 level bonus and a +5 for training, does abstractly achieve that goal for swimming. I just don't think the current DCs hit that target as well as they might.

Also, I think part of the issue is me rebelling against the variableness of the d20 + mod mechanic, for people highly trained in skills. I don't know how far that can be pushed, though, and stay true to the main game design. People that become highly trained do things that lesser beings wouldn't even try, most of the time. But mainly what they do is the moderately complex stuff far more reliably. So something like getting multiple d20 rolls with more training, instead of straight plusses, fits that model a bit better.

You can't do a change like this without fundamentally changing some piece of the game, however minor. There wouldn't be any point in trying unless you wanted such a change. It is the inadvertent side effects that are the rub.

 

[mneme]

What about feats that grant you the trappings (to borrow from FATE) of on one skill via another skill? A feat that lets you jump and climb using Acrobatics, or make friends using Insight?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

What about feats that grant you the trappings (to borrow from FATE) of on one skill via another skill? A feat that lets you jump and climb using Acrobatics, or make friends using Insight?

My gut says that is the opposite of what we want. Or at least, that I want. That effectively does the same thing that d20 + mod versus DC does, collapse the effective options. For skill X, you can get a +2 for this option or a +2 for that option, but in the end, it is just a +2 to the skill that you can use any old way. You can get to jumping through Athletics or you can get to jumping through Acrobatics--but in the end, you just get to jump. If you take a feat to turn your Acrobatics into Athletics, why not just take training in Athletics?

But in the spirit of real brainstorming, you aren't supposed to say what I just said. (I went ahead so that people can understand where I'm coming from.) Let's see if we can turn that idea around.

• What about a feat that lets an appropriate skill take on the trappings of a ritual? Some rituals are pretty limited. Maybe a feat lets you risk a fraction of the components or time, perhaps with a penalty to the skill roll. Or lets you do some of the more modest ones without having them.
• Lets do the same with utility powers that don't have direct combat applications. A feat lets you use it more often or more reliably, or if it is an encounter power, use it 1/day without having it.

 

[BobTheNob]

I totally agree with the sentiments of the OP. I am no longer convinced that feats are the wonder they appeared when they first came into being in 3.0

There is so much you could do with them though if you untangled them from combat mechanics.
* You could move ritual mechanics into the space (i.e. map rituals to feat picks)
* feats that let you swap what stat applies to a skill (Like allowing the use of Wisdom for religion checks)
* feats that allow different ways to apply and use skills, similar to ranger knacks

Im a bit over optimization and combat focus. Im kinda looking forward to getting back to the good old days of adventuring where combat was an exciting moment rather than something you have to design your characters around.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Pushing it yet another way (hat tip to Dausuul in another topic), how about all the mundane feats go away, and get assumed in the skills/classes? Then feats are nothing but over the top stuff. Some of these can even be combat--just not adding to the numbers.

The LotR movies are some obvious places to mine. If you are a ranger, you can do what a ranger can do now. If you take the right feat, you can stab people with arrows.

OK, so that interferes with stunting using page 42. Any ranger can try that stunt, as a low damage thing. If you take the feat, you get to do it just like you had a dagger in your hand instead of an arrow, and thus it becomes a "reliable stunt".

On the metagaming side, you take even more explicit narrative control. You spend a feat, and suddenly you are the long lost prince--with all that means. This is almost like Burning Wheel traits, and probably a bunch of similar options in other games I haven't played.

Those are bad examples. I know they are. The idea is that you don't even necessarily spend feats when you first get them. A feat is something that lets you turn a "crazy plan that just might work" into a "plan that will work for me right now, because I'm ..."

That has the obvious benefit that people who don't want to bother with them aren't missing any mechanical edge.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Bob the Nob, I like those ideas.

For those who don't like siloing, and every one being reasonably proficient at combat:

You get less powers by default, but are allowed to take more with feats. You get less trained skills by default. You get more feats. For sake of example, say one feat every level.

Hmm, let's go with an average of 4 skills (being nice to the poor fighter and his ilk). Any class that normally starts with more than that gets some freebies up front. Powers are, what 2/4/4/7, but start at 2/1/1. That's 13 more over the course of 30 levels, not counting paragon picks, and so forth. And then 2 more for skills. And just to squash a big chunk of the abuse, easily, let's say that you can't ever have more dailies than encounters. You can have as many at wills and utilities as you care to pick. Of course, you can't pick any power until you have the right level to get it.

And you can still retrain one per level, to swap out lower ones. (There are some interesting ideas why not, but the net effect of getting rid of that rule is encouraging people to overly plan builds, which isn't sympatico with the main idea.)

That means 15 of your 30 picks are to get back to baseline. Pretty close to current. And then you'll need 2 or 3 to benefit from the paragon paths, which makes multiclassing competitive. (Once you take the multiclass skill training combo, from then on, it is just buying feats from a broader list.)

This potentially works because of one big reason: Normally, when you pick from a limited list, each choice is worse than the previous, barring prerequisities, which have their own issues. But here, the already built in level prerequisiites means that you are constantly picking from a different pool.

But there is another intriguing idea here, besides letting a wizard go nuts on spells at the expense of skill, or whatever. Leave the math alone. Sure, your dailies can miss horribly, as you level. But now you have more dailies, if that is important to you. Going this route, perhaps allow more at the start.

 

[Ryujin]

I like the idea, but I think that multi-classing might well then become the new tool for optimization.

Someone else had posted an intriguing idea, about splitting the feats into two groups; combat related and non combat related. This might satisfy all sides of the issue or, more likely, dissatisfy everyone a little, which is generally the way to tell that something has been well negotiated. It would require some rekigging of the feats, to create a clear delineation between the two classes of feat, but it could be done.

I think that such things should be kept separate from background options though. Perhaps you could discover that you were born to a noble family when you reach 8th level, and express that by spending a feat to acquire 'Noble Birth', but something like that strikes me as just too contrived. 'Characterization' feats should probably be used to unlock background benefits, rather than suddenly popping a complete character changer into the mix. You hit 8th level? Well now you can acquire that lesser family steading that has no tangible benefit, other than to provide a fairly secure haunt for the party, between adventures.

For role playing stuff, not mechanical benefit. OK, not mechanical benefit in combat.

It's not a bad thing to allow some combat customization but maybe that should be kept to being able to make yourself better with heavy blades (+1 attack), at the expense of not being as good with other weapons (-1)?

 

[CoarseDragon]

I do believe there are some rituals that could be made into feats. Create Campsite could be used by a character but instead of spirits creating the campsite the party members do that.

How about always knowing your depth and direction while underground?

Specific monster knowledge feats. "Yeah I know Kobolds like the back of my hand".

These are some things I would like to see anyway.

 

[Mengu]

Put feats into 3 categories.

1. Numeric Combat feats - Any bonus to attack, damage (or damage dice), hit points, defenses, saves, surges, initiative, etc. This is your Expertise, Focus, Superior weapon/implement, Toughness, Armor Proficiency, Unarmored Agility, Resilient Focus, Superior Will, Called Shot, Backstabber, Dwarf Stoneblood, Half-orc Resilience, Eladrin Soldier, etc.

2. Non-numeric combat feats - Anything that doesn't add a number to attack, damage, hit points, defenses, saves, etc. Numeric effects like increasing push/slide distance, or increasing the range of a thrown weapon can be included in this category. The meat of this category will be things like Distant Advantage, Deadly Draw, War Wizard's Staff, Tail Slide, Agile Opportunist, Risky Shift, Polearm Momentum, etc. Multiclass feats should probably be in this category, despite typically including a skill training.

3. Non-combat and skill feats - anything that boosts a skill, possibly including some combat benefits that relate to skills. This category has feats like Skill Training, Skill Focus, Alertness, Wood Elf Agility, Agile Athlete, Sure Climber, Holy Speech, Strong-arm Tactics, etc. as well as Skill Power.

Feat Acquisition Rule: The difference between the number of feats you have in each category can never be more than 1.

At level 1, you start with 3 feats. (Humans get 2 bonus feats instead of 1.) Then you gain 1 feat per level.

It would be a pretty massive task to categorize each feat, and some feats would require discussion as they can be in multiple categories. But I think a system like this would put PC's on more even footing, where you don't have the character who trounces over combat encounters with the best combat feats, or the one that crushes every skill challenge with every single skill boost imaginable. We might get better adventurers in the end, rather than combat mongers and skill monkeys.

I have half the mind to split the numeric combat feat category into 2 as well, for offense/defense. But that might be pushing it. While I may not be fond of all defense all the time defenders, and all attack all the time strikers, I suppose these extremes need to be part of the game.

 

[Destil]

Well, it would put some sort of constraint on feat design, which is a start. Possibly not one I'd want to see, though.

My ideal feat replacement system:

You have Talents and Feats. You gain 3-5 talents per tier and 2 feats per tier.

Talents are always, as a rule, simple mechanically and should never come up in play. Once you have them on your character sheet you can forget about them. Things like weapon and armor prof, unarmored defense, skill training and focus, improved defenses et cehera. Bonuses from talents are VERY strictly typed to prevent stacking, no unnamed bonuses.

Feats are big things. You get two per tier, they're usually untyped bonuses though really general could be a feat bonus. They actually add complexity to play.

Level 1: 1 Heroic Tier Feat, 1 Talent, 1 Racial Talent, 2 At Wills, 1 encounter, 1 Daily
Level 2: Utility Power
Level 3: Encounter Power
Level 4: Talent, +1 to two ability scores
Level 5: Daily Power
Level 6: Utility Power, Heroic Tier Feat
Level 7: Encounter Power
Level 8: Talent, +1 to two ability scores
Level 9: Daily Power
Level 10: Utility Power
Level 11: Paragon Path Encounter Power Paragon Tier Feat, +1 to all ability scores

I'd even suggest possibly replacing feats instead of gaining them after 4 or so.